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  • Amphibia:
    • Occasionally recurring character Chuck Gardner doesn't say much apart from the fact that he grows tulips. He also is able to rebuild the Plantars' house in about 10 seconds after it gets destroyed in "Handy Anne". This is why Hop Pop hired him in the first place to defend the house.
    • The eponymous character of "Mr. X" is an eccentric Agent Peacock who wears roller shoes and works out of a Van in Black disguised as an ice-cream truck. Mr. X is also quite good at his job, getting dangerously close to capturing the Plantars (who he believes are the vanguard of an alien invasion).
  • The titular character from Archer is self-centred, can't keep it in his pants, can't maintain a cover identity to save his life, all his colleagues hate him and he displays at times profound stupidity... but he's incredibly competent in certain areas of his job.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: "The King of Omashu" gives us Bumi. He's positively ancient, mad as Lewis Carroll's Hatter, and perhaps the most powerful earthbender in the series.note 
  • The sequel The Legend of Korra gives us Varrick, the batshit insane, eccentric, flamboyant, happy-go-lucky, loud, impulsive, wacky billionaire businessman. However, beneath all this, he's also a highly intelligent, sly, charismatic, underhanded, and opportunistic genius: born a poor seal-hunter from the Northern Water Tribe he, managed to turn a single canoe to a highly successful business, and would go on to be one of the richest people in the world simply by taking advantage of how people tend to not take him seriously until it's too late.
  • Harvey Bullock from Batman: The Animated Series is crude, obese, obnoxious, unlikable, despised by his fellow police officers, and regularly breaks the law. However, not only do they keep him around but he even made detective since not only is he not corrupt in the least (and balks at the hint of being on the take), and not only does he only break the law to get results, but he's damned good at his job. A Bullet For Bullock even shows that, in a fight, he's almost as resourceful, quick-thinking, and good with his fists as Batman is.
  • Bob's Burgers: This trope is actually invoked twice: once when Bob is having a dream sequence where he's on trial and his lawyer is Louise, complete with her pink bunny hat. The second time is when Louise is made a defense attorney for her school's mock trial. Despite failing miserably in Bob's dream sequence, she's actually a pretty damn good lawyer in-universe.
    • For as ADHD as Gene is, he is proficient at music, coming up with a play that combined Die Hard and Working Girl in 20 minutes.
  • Camp Lazlo: Clam is quiet and pretty eccentric, but he'll usually be good at the things he does because he's very strong and incredibly smart. In "Prodigious Clamus", he assembles a 500-piece puzzle by putting the pieces in his mouth, chewing them up and spitting them back out. Aside from the puzzle being covered in his saliva, it's perfectly assembled.
  • Gadget from Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers is a Mouse-Ears Mechanic. She's somewhat deficient when it comes to social interaction and is a certifiable Cloudcuckoolander Absent-Minded Professor. And she can build pretty much anything.
  • Mung Daal from Chowder is by far the most eccentric character in the show who runs off of incredibly bizarre logic, and yet he's the most celebrated master chef in all of Marzipan City for how high-quality his creations are.
  • A lot of KND operatives on Codename: Kids Next Door. One example being Numbuh 363, the Bratty Half-Pint younger brother of Supreme Leader Numbuh 362 who despite Hates Being Touched to the point he'll throw tantrums over it, acted as the leader of Sector W and maintained the highest mission success rate in the organization. Although in the Grand Finale, Numbuh 5 states that after she took over as Supreme Leader she had him decommissioned over this instability.
  • Duck Dodgers' laziness, idiocy, greed, and general ineptness are often very much a liability to The Protectorate but he does end up coming through in the end just often enough for them to keep him around. Like in the first episode, where he manages to stop a Martian attack on Earth... after he had put the Earth in danger by overloading its defense shields in the first place. Additionally, he's one of the only men to fight the Martian Queen one-on-one and live to tell the tale.
  • DuckTales (1987): Quirky but talented individuals seems to be a running theme in the McDuck workplace.
    • Fenton Crackshell is a Mama's Boy with a bad habit of taking things too literally and a tendency to overdo or underthink plans which sometimes creates or exacerbates the problem of the week. However, his determination and mad counting skills are unquestionable. During Fenton's job interview, Scrooge tried to dismiss him and fired a shotgun to scare him away when he persisted. When Fenton reeled off the entire number of shot (and the change Scrooge tossed into the air as a second test), he hired him on the spot.
    • Gyro Gearloose, despite his extreme intelligence, shares Fenton's tendency for literal interpretations and has never yet learned to secure his inventions properly against criminals who would put them to bad use. That said, his scientific prowess ranks years ahead of its time; the guy can invent sapient robots, time machines, and levitation-capable bubble gum without breaking a sweat.
    • Launchpad McQuack has a goofy personality and loves to crash any vehicle he can get his hands on. However, under pressure, he shows tons of courage and a fair amount of resourcefulness, and he can control any method of transportation (one episode had him driving an alien spacecraft, and another a Humongous Mecha, both without practice). Scrooge blatantly declares at one point that Launchpad is the only pilot he knows capable of consistently pulling off the impossible things necessary in his adventures.
  • DuckTales (2017): Played for Horror (In-Universe — or at least Black Comedy) when Scrooge tries to prevent his employees (like Gyro) from being fired by his even-more-penny-pinching-to-the-point-Scrooge-hates-it accountants. When impassioned speeches don't work, Scrooge just cuts to the chase and points out that most of the people he's hired (like Gyro) are all top experts in their fields and completely mad and if the accountants fire them, this group of mad people are going to get seriously pissed and come gunning for the accountants in Revenge. The accountants decide it's best (for their health) to keep said employees hired.
  • Family Guy: Glenn Quagmire, who, despite being a raging hypersexual, is an excellent pilot (and quite serious when on the job). The only time he was ever fired from his job was due to Peter's antics. Later that episode, he gets his job back after helping land a plane via Telecom.
  • O'Farrell from Fillmore! is a Cloudcuckoolander of the first order, at one point delivering a curiously philosophical ramble on the Zen nature of being unable to see your own butt, but he's pretty damn good at crime scene photography. To a lesser degree, there's also the Cowboy Cop protagonist, whose skill at catching the villains is probably the only reason he isn't going to be paying off destruction of school property for the next million years from the carnage-strewn chase scenes that happen usually two, maybe three times an episode.
  • Futurama: Despite being a senile old man who struggles with basic situational awareness, Professor Farnsworth is also one of the most talented inventors in the universe.
  • This seems to be the case in Invader Zim for the whole irken race (sans Zim). Whenever we see them, they seem to be as petty, childish, and ridiculous as Zim himself, with a big obsession with junk food (in one episode, rescuing donuts was in the same priority as checking why the largest ship was malfunctioning). The difference between them and Zim is that they, you know, can actually conquer stuff.
  • Kim Possible:
    • Several of the scientists Kim helps out on her adventures. The prize has to go to Dr. Freeman from "Car Trouble," a charmingly childish and eccentrically unfettered scientist who created a house full of funny A.I.s just so he could have off-kilter conversations with them. In his first few minutes has a dance party with his toaster (an advanced AI, but still). Then Drakken breaks into his home. This does not immediately stop the dance party — in fact, in general he doesn't seem to mind being kidnapped at all. He eventually proves too kooky for Drakken to use mind-altering technology against, so he has to resort to trickery to get the guy to do want he wants.
    • Nearly all of the villains count, some more than others. Before he was fired for refusing to shave his mullet (or rather he quit for being told it had to go), Motor Ed was "widely regarded as the most brilliant mechanical engineer in the country." Motor Ed.
    • It may run in the family, as his cousin is Drew Lipsky — a.k.a. Drakken.
  • King of the Hill
  • Mrs. Twombly from Littlest Pet Shop (2012). She seems to be very quirky for her age but is a Reasonable Authority Figure and is a successful owner of the Littlest Pet Shop store.
  • Dethklok are total idiots and hilariously incompetent at everything they do, with two exceptions: music, and contract negotiation. They're good enough at the former to become the world's seventh largest economy, and good enough at the latter to enter into a Deal with the Devil to sell their souls, only to end up whittling his price down to a $5 Hot Topic gift card, plus he would have to give them part of his soul in addition to what they asked for originally.
    Devil: [nervously] Iiiii'm gonna sleep on it and contact a notary.
    Murderface: I'm a notary.
    Devil: I'm gonna sleep on it! Take care, guys. [gets in his car and drives away]
    Pickles:...I like him!
  • Miraculous Ladybug has Chat Noir, an accomplished superhero at the age of 14 who the city relies on to defeat akuma. He also got shot once because he tried to confess his love for a teammate in the middle of battle.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
    • Rainbow Dash is rude, crass, tomboyish, eminently egocentric, and prefers to spend her time either napping or practicing flying stunts rather than doing her weather management job — but she's one of the greatest flyers in Equestria, can perform moves other pegasi only dream of (plus one that was supposed to be impossible), can clear the skies in ten seconds flat, and is ultimately dependable to the point of being the literal embodiment of the Element of Loyalty.
    • Rarity is a renowned fashion designer, commissioned by pop stars and royalty alike, and a massive Drama Queen prone to fainting, freak outs and assorted conniptions. And despite her usual prissiness and tendency to panic at the slightest hint of getting dirty; she has repeatedly demonstrated that she can throw down with the best of them.
    • Pinkie Pie works at a bakery and freelances as a party planner, and no doubt drives her employers (and any co-workers that she may have) batty with her unusual but insightful logic. Depending on the episode, she is either crafty and intelligent—often coming to conclusions none of the rest of the cast would have thought of (such as stashing eye patches and balls all over Ponyville on the off chance they're needed)—or a straight Cloudcuckoolander with minimal attachment to reality.
      • "Swarm of the Century" is a good example of this. Throughout the episode, Pinkie seems to be occupied with a meaningless scavenger hunt instead of helping her friends deal with the parasprite infestation. In the end, it turns out that she knew exactly how to deal with parasprites and was working on that plan all along (and assumed that her friends knew that), so from her point of view she was the one dealing with the problem while her friends kept playing silly games.
    • Fluttershy is a pegasus pony who is ordinarily a weak flier with crippling shyness. But she's a caretaker/veterinarian who is highly skilled with animals, and embodies the element of kindness. On top of that, dare to harm an innocent animal, or threaten her friends, and you will really wish you hadn't.
    • Twilight Sparkle is a powerful mage, and a highly capable organizer and administrator; with a neurotic fear of failure, and No Social Skills. She gets better.
    • In fact, the only member of the Mane 6 who isn't a Bunny-Ears Lawyer is Applejack, though she does have a tendency to be The Workaholic.
  • Kyösti Pöysti, the main character of Pasila, is a criminal detective who sucks on a pacifier.
  • Heinz Doofenshmirtz of Phineas and Ferb and Milo Murphy's Law makes inventions that rewrite the laws of physics, which he mostly uses for petty acts of revenge or doomed attempts at conquering Danville. He's a celebrated figure in the future for inventing Time Travel, but his prototype can't pin down an exact date because he decided to use space on the control panel to put a cupholder.
    Doofenshmirtz: Alright, anyone who build a time machine today raise your hand. ...Yeah, I thought so. You get what you get and you don't get upset.
  • Rick of Rick and Morty is a scientist (although not by profession) capable of building extraordinary inventions, but is also a drunk with no moral or ethical boundaries.
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
    • Double Trouble is a ham-acting shapeshifter with worryingly intense theatre kid energy who utterly adores causing chaos and seemingly goes out of their way to be as melodramatic as possible. None of it reduces their skill as a Manipulative Bastard; if anything, that devotion to acting helps. It takes them four episodes — "Pulse", "Protocol", "Princess Scorpia" and "Mer-Mysteries" to bring the Rebellion almost to its knees. It takes them two to almost destroy the Horde.
    • Entrapta is an eccentric scientists and engineer who will only eat tiny foods and drink carbonated beverages, prefers the company of robots to people, has no qualms about petty theft, speaks loudly much of the time, and has no social graces. She's also one of the most brilliant minds in the series, capable of integrating First Ones and Horde technology with ease and gleaning the true nature of Etheria's runestones and the existence of the Heart of Etheria. She works alongside Hordak on technology-related projects as an equal, even though Hordak comes from a far more technologically advanced society.
  • SilverHawks, a sci-fi cartoon by the makers of ThunderCats (1985), has Colonel Bluegrass. Despite his rank, he looks, talks, dresses and acts like a stereotypical cowboy from the Wild West, but he's also an ace pilot described as being able to master anything that flies. If that wasn't strange enough, he's also a skilled guitar player, and is so fanatic about it that his futuristic guitar is not only a weapon, but actually integrates with the piloting mechanism for the Miraj, the team's spaceship.
  • In the early days of The Simpsons, Krusty The Clown is this. Everyone tolerates his jerkass behaviour because he is considered a universally beloved entertainer on the level of Elvis Presley. In later seasons, he becomes a has-been whose popularity keeps sinking, and who's constantly at the risk of being fired by his network.
  • South Park:
    • "Say what you will about Mel Gibson, but the son of a bitch knows story structure!" (To emphasize this after they make fun of Michael Bay with his Stuff Blowing Up, and M. Night Shyamalan with his The Un-Twist Plot Twist.)
    • Randy Marsh as well: Most of the time, he acts highly impulsively, and when he takes an interest in something, he gets so caught up in it that he makes a public fool of himself. However, he's a respected geologist, even by his peers at the U.S. Geological Survey, and when called on to perform a geology-related task, he'll know exactly what he's doing and will get the job done perfectly and with minimal difficulty. Later, he does surprisingly well at being a farmer who grows marijuana — granted he makes a lot of blunders but for a man with zero experience, education, or training as a farmer he does a very good job keeping the farm running.
    • Mr. Slave, who was originally hired in order to help thoroughly disgust the school system with completely depraved homosexual antics so that they would fire Mr. Garrison, and thus allow him to sue for discrimination. Long after that plan was abandoned he's gotten to keep his job, homoerotic outfit and antics and all, presumably because he's honestly a good teacher who actually cares deeply about the students.
    • P.C. Principal, who despite being a thuggish oaf with a Hair-Trigger Temper who is Political Overcorrectness incarnate, does a surprisingly good job running the school and, despite being willing to physically assault students and teachers alike for minor slights, never-the-less actually cares about their well-being. Especially so in later seasons where he toned down the violence and showed he was Not So Above It All.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: SpongeBob is known for being a Too Dumb to Live loud and hyperactive goofball, but his superhuman skills for making Krabby Patties keeps the entire Krusty Krab restaurant together (and indeed, keeps Bikini Bottom from collapsing into anarchy), much to the chagrin of Squidward. So far, there has been only one fry-cook better than SpongeBob, and even he admitted that if SpongeBob didn't limit himself to working at the Krusty Krab, he would easily be the best fry-cook in the ocean. SpongeBob, of course, chooses to remain at the Krusty Krab, since the love of his job is far bigger than his drive to be the best fry-cook.
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks: The four protagonists have their unique talents while also being quirky. The senior staff is implied to be the same way.
    • Mariner is an Action Girl who's incredibly knowledgeable about the galaxy, but also relentlessly insubordinate as well as prone to acting before thinking.
    • Boimler is a stickler for the rules and full of technical knowledge, but a Lovable Coward who has little practical experience.
    • Tendi is a Plucky Girl and The Heart of the team, but overly eager to please as well as easily impressed.
    • Rutherford is a Cyborg with incredible engineering skill, but horrible at making command decisions as well as interpersonal reactions.
  • Star Wars Resistance gives us two examples: Neeku Vozo, a highly socially awkward and just all around bizarre character who's possibly the best mechanic on the station, and Kazuda Xiono, a not too bright, overly enthusiastic klutz who's nonetheless one of the best pilots in the series and an increasingly competent spy. Hype, the leader of the platform's Aces, reacts in shock when he learns that Kaz is going to be helping them in a training dogfight, only for Kaz and his mentor Yeager to take down all five Aces within minutes.
  • The Steven Universe character Pearl can become irrationally anxious to the degree of sobbing fits and has little grasp of social interaction despite being around humans and interacting with them for thousands of years. It says a lot about Pearl's skills in combat (and engineering, and piloting, and dancing, and music...) that none of these flaws stopped her from becoming the bodyguard of a revolutionary leader(albeit one of questionable effectiveness), a engineer capable of making spaceships and mech suits out of old junk and scrap and The Dreaded to a Proud Warrior Race. She's one of those people who just fixates on what she likes doing to the exclusion of all else. Consider that Pearls are literally made to be little more than decoration, and her achievements become that much more impressive.
  • Wildcat from TaleSpin. When actually in touch with reality, he demonstrated MacGyver-level feats of improvisational engineering.
    • Baloo isn't far behind, he's lazy, slovenly, fiscally irresponsible, clumsy, never graduated grade school.... and is the best pilot you'll find anywhere.
  • In Transformers, this is a type commonly found in the Decepticon ranks. From ace gunfighter/closet coward Slugslinger to preening victory obsessed egotist Drag Strip, many of the more stable Decepticons find themselves grudgingly accepting the obvious personality disorders around them because the people with them are among the most effective warriors.
    • In the case of Starscream, his quirk is that he wants to supplant Megatron. It is very much due to his superior skill that he is kept on as a Lieutenant, although later incarnations have Megatron far less patient with him.
    • The aforementioned Drag Strip is part of the Stunticons, a combiner team whose hat is that the members all have some sort of disorder. Drag Strip is egotistical and competitive, Breakdown is paranoid, Wildrider is insane and Dead End is morbidly depressed. Their leader Motormaster is a cruel bully and his entire team hates him, which adds to the instability of their combined mode Menasor. That said, they're all accomplished warriors, though Megatron generally uses them as fire-and-forget weapons due to how unstable they are.
    • The Combaticons are some of the Decepticons' most reliable soldiers, but they all have their quirks: Brawl the tank is loud and belligerent, Swindle is a charming con artist and salesman, Vortex is mentally unstable, and Blast Off hides his crippling loneliness behind a veneer of arrogant apathy. Onslaught is the most stable of the team, and even he's considered aloof and difficult to talk to. Unlike the Stunticons, however, the Combaticons under Onslaught make an excellent strike team, as Brawl supplies heavy firepower, Swindle is a weapons expert and negotiator, Vortex supplies air support and is their interrogator/ torturer, Blast Off acts as a bomber and as a living transport (thanks to size changing) and Onslaught provides leadership, direction and focus.
    • The Autobots aren't devoid of quirky robots, either. For starters, we have Silverbolt, leader of the Aerialbots, who is afraid of heights... which is a bit of a problem when you and everyone in your combiner team turns into an airplane. Broadside, a triple changer who transforms into a jet and an aircraft carrier, is both acrophobic and prone to seasickness (according to All There in the Manual but never witnessed in any show or comic, mind you.) Also among the heroic forces are the egotistical Sky Lynx, neat freak Wide Load, and Siren, who has No Indoor Voice, among others. And this is just in G1.
    • If you're an engineer in a Transformers series, chances are you're one of these. Wheeljack of G1 was a straight-up Mad Scientist, Brainstorm of More Than Meets the Eye seems disconnected from reality a lot of the time, and Ironfist of Last Stand of the Wreckers is mostly sane... unless you ask him about the Wreckers.
    • The Junkions are an entire race of Bunny Ears Lawyers, as their speech is peppered with pop culture references and they rarely seem to take anything, even attacks by Decepticons, seriously. On the other hand, their unique physiology effectively makes them immortal on their home planet (they can repair themselves using any piece of junk nearby) and they are among the best mechanics in the galaxy.
    • And then there's the Dinobots...
    • Beast Wars
      • Rattrap is often insubordinate, keeps complaining about his job and single-handedly gets on the nerves of every single one of the Maximals, IE his own side, especially Optimus Primal, IE his boss. Even though they're all stranded, the only reason he's not kicked out of the base to fend for himself alone in the wild against the Predacons is because his skills as a spy, infiltrator, sharpshooter and saboteur are absolutely unparallelled, to the point where when Optimus is gone, Rattrap's actually put in charge because he's just that good.
      • In fairness, the Maximals eventually learn to love Rattrap, who often makes fun of people as a sign of endearment. A much more straight example is Tarantulas, who is completely open to his boss Megatron that he hates him, is working against him, and hopes to destroy him. He also tends to utterly disgust and repulse the other Predacons with his gross appetite and even once making a very serious attempt at eating one of the Maximals. However, the vast majority of Megatron's other troops are idiots, while Tarantulas has scientific know-how that outclasses Megatron's own. Megatron needs Tarantulas and counts on the fact that when the time comes, he'll be able to outgambit him — he does. He even outright tells Tarantulas this, making it very clear he doesn't even remotely consider the spider's treachery a threat when Tarantulas actually messes up:
        Megatron: I can suffer your treachery, lieutenant, but NOT your incompetence!!!
      • Inferno is utterly insane, insists on calling Megatron "my Queen", and really likes to set people on fire. Megatron mainly kept him around due to his loyalty (a rarity for a Predacon) and how good he was at, well, setting people on fire. All of his behavior comes from his alt form being a fire ant, which bleeds into his personality.
    • Transformers: Animated isn't devoid of these either.
      • Many of the Decepticons are like this. The series is more 'cartoony' than most, but The Powers That Be had a rule: every Decepticon is a real threat. Blitzwing is hilarious and argues with himselves... and has fire powers, ice powers, and Macross Missile Massacre powers. Lugnut's fanaticism as he declares the awesomeness of the GREAT and GLORIOUS Lord Megatron with extra Large Ham-ness is hilarious... but his firepower makes the aforementioned Blitzwing look like nothing, and if sending out missiles literally by the dozens won't kill it, he's got a punch that can flatten a city block or two. Swindle's pretty much Honest John's Dealership... but he kept the best toys for himself. Starscream's more bombastic than ever, but he managed to bring down Ultra Magnus moments after getting thrashed by Megatron for the usual reasons.
      • Starscream's clones all have some aspect of his personality tuned up to the max, some, like Skywarp and Thundercracker are about as effective as they seem, and Ramjet is incredibly predictable. Slipstream takes down the beefier Bulkhead, and continues to display battle proficiency despite her snippy attitude. Sunstorm manages to free Ramjet during the fight, studies and then takes down Prowl, complimenting him all the way.
      • Optimus Prime's Five-Man Band in Animated is such a Dysfunction Junction it's a testament to Optimus' leadership that they manage to accomplish anything, let alone save Earth and Cybertron time and again. Ratchet, their Combat Medic, is a Shell-Shocked Veteran and Grumpy Old Man who is an ingenious field surgeon; Prowl, the robotic McNinja and lone wolf who is legitimately skilled and eventually masters the Mind over Matter aspects of his cyber-ninja training; BumbleeBee, the hyperactive and immature bot that had several Let's Get Dangerous! moments in the series that frequently result in a Moment of Awesome; Bulkhead, the hick from the countryside that Does Not Know His Own Strength and is the most brilliant Space Bridge engineer in the universe and an accomplished artist to a lesser extent; Optimus himself is the least eccentric and that's probably why Ultra Magnus put him in charge in the first place.
    • Transformers: Prime: Knock Out is a vain, preening, cowardly jerk who cares more about the immaculate finish on his car chassis (which is modelled on an Aston Martin Vanquish) than anything else in the universe, but he's also an extremely skilled Combat Medic. Even when nobody on his side respects him, they all understand that without him, they're going to be left trying to weld themselves back together.
  • On Vampirina, Dr. Dolores Millweed from "Haunted House Call" follows this. When we first see her, she gives the Hauntley family lollipops even though they're not patients. When she first sees Demi trapped in the TV, she immediately says that this is his diagnosis. However, she's still a great doctor with how she's able to connect the dots on how he became sick, mainly with the family inadvertently ignoring him and how ghosts' health is tied to their emotions.
  • Shore Leave of The Venture Bros. is Camp Gay with a Porn Stache and a sailor's hat. He's also a former top agent of the OSI, a crack shot, and an overall ass kicker when he wants to be. BOOM, yummy!


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